How Women's Fertility Changes With Age

Basics

oi-Staff

By Padmapreetham Mahalingam

Monday, June 8, 2015, 17:15 [IST]

You might have decided to start your own family but you are puzzled and wondering how long it would take for you to become pregnant. Starting a family is completely a personal decision. Yet it is not the same for everyone.

These days many women are choosing to wait. You may have postponed having children for various reasons and now you have crossed your 30s wondering how fertile you are. Many women are not aware that fertility treatments cannot always make up for the wane.

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The most fertile years are mostly when women are in the 20s however fertility begins to diminish for women from the age of 30. When it comes to fertility, age really matters. Both males and females become fertile in their teens following puberty. The beginning of reproductive years is determined by the onset of ovulation and menstruation for girls.

Women are aware that after menopause they can no longer be able to get pregnant. Here are some of the reasons why and how women's fertility changes with age.

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Fertility Changes With Age
Substantially the reproductive potential starts to decline as women gets older. Their fertility is most likely to end 5 to 10 years before menopause. It doesn't mean that women cannot have children mid thirties, but it is just that it takes longer.

Fertility slows down for women from about the age of 30 and it tends to drastically diminish from the age of 35. There is a consensus that fertility declines as women age because of the normal age related decrease in the number of eggs that remain in her ovaries.

However this could even take sooner than usual for most women. Even among the population that never uses contraception, fertility declines with increasing age of women. This is one of the reasons why women's fertility changes with age.

Ovaries Have Duration
It is reasonably true why women's fertility changes with age. Creating babies requires healthy eggs. Yet it becomes limited as you become older. Usually unborn female will carry 6 to 7 million eggs while at birth she does have 1 to 3 million.

However by menopause there will be only few hundred eggs remaining. Women are born with million eggs but the time they reach puberty, the number continues to go down every year. It doesn’t mean that every egg that subsists can make a baby.

Sometimes about half of eggs can have abnormalities even in their prime age. There is a possibility of quantity of eggs to have genetic problems once the age starts to increase. So ultimately this can reduce the number of usable eggs.

Fertility Soars In 20s
For most women their fertility maxes out between the age of 23 to 32. Moreover when they are nearing 31, the fertility tends to dip more swiftly by around 2 to 3 percent per year until they reach 35 or so.

Women have miscarriages because the egg quality has decreased and the remaining tends to dwindle in number. These changes happen once she touches her mid to late 30s. This is one of the important reasons why women's fertility changes with age.

Non Ovarian Factors
It is common knowledge that stipulation of eggs changes with your age in view of the fact that they will have increased rate of chromosomal anomalies. And this thereby adds to the likelihood of early miscarriage. Moreover apart from some of these complications, there are also non ovarian factors.

As women get older they are likely to undergo certain medical problems such as endometriosis or fibroids. There are also tubal diseases or polyps which can lessen their fertility.

Fertility In Women In 30s
Women’s best reproductive years are in their 20s. Moreover fertility tends to plummet in the 30s and predominantly after the age of 35. A fertile 30-year old woman has only 20 % probability to get pregnant. This literally means 100 fertile 30-year old women who are desperately wanting to get pregnant in 1 cycle only 20 turn out be thriving while the other 80 will have to try harder.

According to the journal of human production, by age 35 women with older partner will have only 20 percent chance of conceiving in any month.

Women In 40s
Women at age 40 have less chance which means 5% per cycle. They will not remain fertile until menopause. Women’s ability to conceive a child ends about 10 years before menopause. The average age for menopause is 51 yet there are women who are unable to become pregnant in their mid-40s.

Moreover some of these percentages are completely true for conception using fertility treatment like Vitro Fertilization (IVF). Even if your mother had her first baby after 42, it doesn’t mean you could rely on that providence.

Follicles In Ovaries
When there is a decrease in the quantity of eggs containing follicles in the ovaries it is termed as a loss of ovarian reserve. Women lose ovarian reserve even before they become infertile. Women are born with follicles however the collection of follicles tends to gradually get depleted.

As the ovarian reserve minimises, the follicles that are fewer become less receptive to FSH stimulation since they need more spur for an egg to mature and ovulate. The periods in women would come to end in short cycles such as 21 to 25 days apart.

Moreover the follicles will not respond enough to consistently ovulate which results in more irregular cycles.